Rising Oil Prices Prompts Call for Alaska Drilling

From a news story by
CNN San Francisco Reporter Rusty Dornin

March 16, 2000

When the numbers start going up here, you can bet the pressure gauge rises here also. It is pressure to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge, known as ANWR, has been off limits since 1980 to any oil exploration without Congressional approval. Alaska's Sen. Frank Murkowski says it's time for Congress to reconsider.

Sen. Frank Murkowski says, "ANWR becomes one of the reasonable alternatives and consequently we want to pursue it." **

Environmentalists call the ANWR the biological heart of Alaska, and compare it to the Serengeti plains of Africa for the diversity of wildlife. They say, put an oil field here and you will destroy it forever.

Bruce Hamilton of the Sierra Club says, "We're going to sacrifice something that we should be passing on to our grandchildren as a national heritage, in order to have a quick fix of oil for six months and if you really want additional oil there are better ways to do it through conservation."

Alaska ships 10 percent of its oil to Asia, but petroleum producers say the percentage is too small to affect U.S. supplies or prices. When gas prices soar there's a rally cry by the oil industry. They say, "Open the refuge and drill and the U.S. would no longer be over a barrel."

Mark Rubin of the American Petroleum Institute says, by using oil from ANWR, "It has been estimated through the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that we could replace the same amount of oil that we are importing through Saudi Arabia for the next 30 years."

As the oil industry dreams of vast pools of crude beneath the Arctic tundra, environmentalists say their dream is to get President Clinton to declare the ANWR a national monument. This is the only surefire way, they say, to keep the refuge wild and free.

** Senator Murkowski is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources commercial.

Additional notes:

ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THIS STORY:

1) A brief description of ANWR, from the website of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

"Located in northeastern Alaska, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the most northern and one of the largest Refuges within America’s National Wildlife Refuge System. The Arctic Refuge is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Nature remains essentially undisturbed in this scenic, pristine land. The Arctic Refuge’s primary mandate: to protect the wildlife and habitats of this area for the benefit of people now and in the future. …The Arctic Refuge is home to local Inupiat and Gwich’in Indian communities. It is also a symbol, even for those who will never visit, of the link between wilderness and wildlife, and the need for both, now and in the future."

For a complete description of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, see this official website. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--U.S. Fish and Wildlife Official Site:
http://www.r7.fws.gov/nwr/arctic/arctic.html

2) Excerpts from Senator Murkowski’s press release of March 8, 2000. (For the full text of his remarks, see the following website:
http://energy.senate.gov/press/press_frames.htm

WASHINGTON, D.C.– Thirty-three Senators today joined Chairman Frank H. Murkowski on a bipartisan basis to introduce a bill to allow environmentally sound oil and gas exploration and development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. In addition, Murkowski is calling for suspension of the 4.3 cent gas tax, imposed by the Clinton-Gore Administration in 1993, until the end of the year.

"There is an increasing concern about oil prices with the current crude price at $34.13 per barrel and gasoline prices at $1.54 per gallon as the national average-- an historic high. While many factors contribute to the price structure of particular fuels, an underlying factor is our huge reliance on imported oil," explained the Chairman.
"We are staggering toward 64 percent dependence on foreign oil by the year 2020, and being held hostage to the national interests of the oil producing countries. Our domestic production has gone down by 17 percent during the Clinton Administration, while consumption increased by 14 percent," said Murkowski.

"At a hearing in 1998, the U.S. Department of the Interior upped its estimates of the recoverable supply of oil in ANWR to between 9 and 16 billion barrels of oil. That high figure would equal what we import from Saudi Arabia over 30 years," said the Chairman.

Murkowski stressed that only about 2000 acres of the Coastal Plain would be developed for oil and gas purposes. The total ANWR consists of 19 million acres. Eight million acres of that are in wilderness and 9.5 million acres are in refuge. Only 1.5 million acres was set aside by Congress as a potential site for development.

3) Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt responds to proposed legislation by Senator Murkowski to permit oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, March 8, 2000. http://www.doi.gov/news/000308.html

"I strongly oppose legislation introduced in the Senate today to open the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

President Clinton has shown great leadership by announcing his intention to veto past Congressional attempts to circumvent the wishes of millions of Americans nationwide who oppose the degradation of their national treasure. These Americans and the

Clinton/Gore Administration have made it clear again and again: we will protect this last undeveloped fragment of America's arctic coastline for the thousands of caribou, polar bears, swans, snow geese, musk oxen and countless other species who use it to birth and shelter their young.

There is a time and a place for oil exploration in Alaska, and we have permitted environmentally sensitive oil exploration in a large area of the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska, an area set aside for that purpose.

There is a big difference between the designation of a National Petroleum Reserve and a National Wildlife Refuge but some in Congress consistently fail to recognize this fact. So today I am recommending that President Clinton oppose any further Republican Congressional attempts to use legislation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling."

4) Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration Gasoline Watch: http://www.eia.doe.gov

RETAIL GASOLINE: (Self Service Prices per Gallon, Including Taxes)
------- 2000 -------

5) Follow the progress of this proposed legislation at U.S.Congress "Legislative Information on the Internet": http://thomas.loc.gov

FURTHER RESEARCH IN THE DEBATE:

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: A Special Report: http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/ANWR/
  
• Arctic Power’s ANWR Page: (Information and opinions from the view of Alaska power industry) http://www.anwr.org/
  
• National Petroleum Reserve, Bureau of Land Management: http://aurora.ak.blm.gov/npra/
  
• National Resources Defence Council Report on ANWR: http://www.nrdc.org/status/laanwr.html
  
• U.S. Department of Energy U.S. Energy Information Administration. Click on "Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update" to find a wealth of statistical information, retail gas prices by the week, and such articles as "Gasoline Watch" and "Increased Potential for Spring-Summer Gas Price Hikes": http://www.eia.doe.gov
  
• USGS Energy Report: ANWR: http://energy.usgs.gov/factsheets/ANWR/ANWR.html
  
• United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: http://www.senate.gov/~energy
  
• The Wilderness Society: Wild Alaska ANWR: (Stand by Your Lands) http://www.wilderness.org/wildalaska/anwr.htm
  
• The Wilderness Society Press Release : Denouncing Sen. Murkowski’s Arctic Oil Drilling Bill. http://www.wilderness.org/newsroom/alaska_030800.htm

RELATED STORIES:

• Gas prices may not peak for weeks (March 13, 2000): http://cnn.com/2000/US/03/13/gas.prices.01/
  
• European fuel prices even higher than those in U.S. (March 13, 2000): http://cnn.com/2000/US/03/13/euro.gas.prices/index.html
  
• Survey: U.S. gasoline prices rising at record pace (March 12, 2000): http://cnn.com/2000/US/03/12/gas.price.survey/index.html
  
• High gas prices won't fall anytime soon (February 24, 2000): http://cnn.com/2000/US/02/24/energy.oil01/index.html

 

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